'I Was Thousands of Miles from My Family When I Was Diagnosed With Breast Cancer'

When Zeynep Akcay, 35, was diagnosed with breast cancer eight years ago, she had just moved to New Jersey to become a Ph.D. student and research and teaching assistant at New Jersey Institute of Technology. But most of her support network—family, friends—was back home in Istanbul, Turkey.

“It was difficult having no close relatives or friends,” says Akcay. “I would have been accompanied by many people during the treatment process if I was back in my hometown. Sharing with people who were close to me would help me cope with the hard times. I would have been more distracted when I spent time with those people and thought less about my disease.”

Instead, she went through much of her journey relying on her faith (Akcay is Muslim), her husband, and his family. In fact, that's how she noticed something was wrong. “Either me or my husband realized there was a lump in my breast,” says Akcay. It hadn’t been there two months before when she checked, but it grew rapidly over the next few months, changing the skin on her breast to the texture of an orange peel.

“My husband was the only person at that time that I knew closely and could trust,” explains Akcay, who was eventually diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer, a rare but aggressive form of the disease that tends to strike young women. “I didn’t want to tell anyone that wasn't nearby until the diagnosis was confirmed.”

Even when she did begin to share with others, like a childhood friend who happened to be living in the U.S., she didn’t get the reaction she had hoped. “I was told that my chances of living in five years were 20 percent. My friend said, ‘That’s OK—we’re all going to die,’” says Akcay, who remembers the words hitting her like a cold shower. “That was her way of giving consolation.” It wasn’t until a few months ago that Akcay reconciled with her friend, who apologized to her and admitted to rarely calling her during her treatments because she didn't feel brave enough.

“At the time I was angry with a lot of people, including my friend,” says Akcay. “But I recently understood why people don’t call a lot. They’re scared.” Helping someone in their fight doesn’t mean you have to talk about their illness all the time. “Try to maintain your relationships in the same way or maybe be closer to show your support,” she says. “You should try to be honest and keep a balance between talking about the disease and never mentioning it.”

Her faith stood in for support as it guided her. "During treatment, I started a new daily prayer and I never stopped while I was sick—I treated it like homework," she says. "My thinking was 'I’m getting my medication, and I’m doing my prayers. I’m doing everything that is in my hands. The rest is God’s will.' Believing that nothing that happened to me happened without [God's] consent and that He was aware of what I was going through made me feel relieved."

As much as she values—and missed—her family, Akcay knows being back home would have meant barriers to treatment and other cultural complications. “It is usually considered rude to reject guests,” she says, explaining that she wouldn’t have had much control over who accompanied her to treatment, for example. “I believe I wouldn’t feel more comfortable and confident if I was treated in Turkey. We might not have been able to afford [the same level of treatment] back home and state hospitals were crowded. I might not have gotten the attention that I was looking for.”

Her courage to recognize that truth helped her be selected as a Model of Courage by the Ford Warriors in Pink program. With them, Akcay shares her message of being a young survivor and also does work to support women fighting breast cancer in her community. In supporting friends, she hopes that we’ll all remember to strike a balance in our conversations. “Saying ‘Don’t worry—you will definitely be fine’ can sound like you don’t understand the person’s situation,” she explains. “Be realistic—but also help them be a dreamer.”